Series Focuses On Influential Shows

February 13, 1986|By Noel Holston, Sentinel Television Critic

Really big shows: What do The Ed Sullivan Show, Roots and The Tonight Show have in common? They're three of 20 programs that changed the face of television, according to Entertainment Tonight, the syndicated show-biz magazine that WESH-Channel 2 televises weeknights at 7:30.

Entertainment Tonight will start a series on that topic tonight. Barring news stories that might upset the scheduling, the series will continue on Thursdays for the next 19 weeks. Actor Peter Strauss will introduce and narrate the four-minute reports.

Entertainment Tonight's producers compiled a list of shows they considered important, then cross-checked their choices by polling many of the country's TV critics, according to Frank Kelly, Paramount TV's vice president of programming. Paramount produces Entertainment Tonight.

The first influential show to be cited will be I Love Lucy (1951-61, CBS). Kelly said that Lucy, ''the first 'personality-driven' show,'' was mentioned by almost everyone Entertainment Tonight's staff polled.

Cut ups: If animation is Walt Disney Productions' greatest claim to fame, cross-promotion should rank a decent second. It was no coincidence that Disneyland, the theme park, and Disneyland, the TV show, were launched concurrently in 1954. Continuing that tradition, Disney's DTV Valentine, scheduled for Friday at 8 p.m. on NBC, will give the mass audience a taste of the DTV featurettes that have been delighting The Disney Channel's paying viewers for the past year.

DTV -- the title is a play on MTV (Music Television) -- sets bits and pieces from classic Disney cartoons to pop music, thereby creating some of the liveliest music videos around. The Disney Channel uses the DTV videos as fillers when movies and specials don't fill up hourly blocks.

Among the promising segments of NBC's specially commissioned Valentine's Day show are:

-- Goofy teaching choreography to the tune of the Contours' ''Do You Love Me (Now That I Can Dance)?''

-- Scenes from Fantasia's ''Rite of Spring'' re-scored to the Eurythmics ''There Must Be An Angel (Playing with My Heart).''

-- A Disney character montage set to ''You Can't Hurry Love'' by the Supremes.

The right thing: MTV has abandoned its familiar promotion that depicts a space shuttle taking off. An MTV spokesman said that in the aftermath of the Challenger tragedy, the footage is ''obviously too painful to use as a channel identification.''

MTV had linked itself to the space program -- Neil Armstrong's moon walk initially, then an ascending shuttle -- to suggest an adventurous spirit. Now it is developing a new promotion.

Heavy petting: Cats & Dogs, a 26-week series for pet-keepers, makes its debut Sunday morning, 9-9:30, on WMFE-Channel 24. The first episode, according to the official program guide, includes ''tips on clipping a cat's nails and a profile of the German Short-haired pointer.''